Not as Fine as I Seem
by shoreleave
Summary: One-shot, Stanford era. Dean gets a migraine.


**Not as Fine as I Seem**

Dean's in line at the 7-11, stocking up on energy bars and M&Ms, when it starts. Just a jagged, pulsing line in the center of his vision.

At first he thinks—hopes—it's just a reflected glare from the early morning sunlight bouncing off the cash register. But it follows his vision even when he looks down, doesn't go away even when he closes his eyes briefly.

His skin prickles into goosebumps. It's been seven or eight months since his last migraine, and if this develops into a full-blown attack, he'll be out of commission for the next 48 hours at least. And he's got a job to do, a series of suspicious happenings to investigate at the Confederate Lodge in Montgomery. Besides, Dad's counting on him.

(Well. What Dad actually said was, "Deal with this, Dean, I haven't got the time for a goddamn poltergeist. Shouldn't take you more than a couple of days, and then I need you to get to Deacon's to pick up that book for me." So he was on the clock.)

He takes a deep breath, tries to relax. Maybe it's a false alarm. No need to panic yet. He blinks again and rubs his eyes.

But the shimmering line is still there, and it's getting rapidly worse. It's spreading quickly, radiating out through the center of his right eye, and that's always a bad sign.

"Sir?" The girl behind the register prompts. "Is that everything?" She's giving him a concerned look, which isn't surprising since he's been blinking repeatedly and staring at nothing instead of moving forward in line like he was supposed to.

Right, the candy. He's lost his appetite, but he might as well have some sugar and calories handy for afterward. He nods, hoping that he's making eye contact in a more-or-less normal way, but it's hard when half her face is a blank, flickering dead space in his vision.

Paying for the food is a challenge, too, when he can't focus properly on the number in the corner of the bill. He's not sure it's a one or a ten. After staring at it in confusion for a minute, he finally gives up all pretense of normal behavior, slaps his palm over his right eye, and holds the bill up to the left. It's a ten.

Just as well he can't see the odd look the girl gives him as she hands over his change.

By the time he makes it back to the Impala, the shimmering line's become a pulsating ring, and his gut's beginning to churn with a hint of nausea. He digs the bottle of Excedrin Extra Strength out of the glove compartment, dry-swallows two, reclines his seat, and closes his eyes.

His timing sucks.

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

It takes about twenty minutes before the shimmering aura goes away. He can track its progress on the back of his right eyelid as it spreads out from the center and eventually dissipates, and by the growing knot of pain that's forming on the left side of his head.

When he opens his eyes again, he's got a nauseating sort of tunnel vision and he has to squint against the mid-morning glare. Keeping one hand jammed against his forehead like a makeshift visor, he fumbles around with the other hand until he finally locates his sunglasses, thrown in with his cassette collection in the box under the passenger seat.

Sitting in the car isn't going to cut it. He needs somewhere to crash—more specifically, somewhere quiet where he can shut the lights out and lie in a miserable stupor—and he needs to get there ASAP. Preferably before the vice that's starting to tighten around his left temporal lobe really gets locked down tight.

Huffing in aggravation, he goes back into the 7-11 and waits impatiently in line until he's back at the register.

"Uh, can I help you?"

It's the same girl as before, staring at him warily, as if he's a potential serial killer or maybe just emotionally unbalanced. At least now he can see her whole face. He gives her a quick smile, hoping for some fast service. "Is there a motel nearby?"

He holds it together while the girl consults with two of her older customers, whose slow drawls and good ol' boy humor make him grit his teeth in irritation. It takes the combined wisdom of the all three of them get directions to the Motel Six on I-565 near Madison, a good twenty-minute drive away.

Dean waits until he's outside before he lets out a heartfelt curse_._ He hates the rural South in general and Bumfuck, Alabama in particular. It's too far to drive when he's in this state. The ache on the left side of his head is really starting to throb now. The sunlight's too bright even with the shades, and the nausea crawls up his gullet just as he gets back to the Impala. He leans over and pukes, one hand on the car door for balance. The throbbing becomes an ice pick digging into his skull as he retches.

When his stomach finally settles, he crawls into the back seat. He's sweating but cold, starting to shiver. He grabs an old towel off the floor, stuffs it under his head, and shuts his eyes.

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

He wakes two hours later, sweaty and shaky. The area between his left ear and the top of his head is filled with an agonizing, pulsating pressure. He sits up slowly, trying not to spook his stomach…. But it's no use. He pukes again, leaning his head out the back door, groaning in misery when the pain ratchets up even further.

He'd almost prefer a straightforward stabbing or a broken bone. That's a pain that he can compartmentalize and distance himself from, if he concentrates. But this particular combination of head pain and nausea makes him feel so wretched that he can't muster the focus he needs to distract himself.

He'd give anything right now for some way to block the light that's streaming into the car… although it's not his Baby's fault he's so messed up. If anyone's to blame for that, it's Dad.

Dad suffers from migraines, too. But John Winchester, of course, is never knocked off his feet by them, not like Dean. Dad's migraines come once every few months, and are more like a bad headache than a debilitating stop-you-in-your-tracks menace. An Excedrin, a nap, and Dad's good to go. A perfect example of his suck-it-up, ignore-it-until-it-goes-away approach to life (and, of course, his parenting style).

Dean's migraines, which started when he was in 9th grade, and are something else entirely. The first time, his father tried to make him push through it (_For God's sake, son, it's just a headache, drink some water and stop that groaning_) but eventually, he had to accept that it wasn't going to happen. Dean retreated to his bed, wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets to shut out the lights and the noise from the TV, emerging periodically to retch into a bucket. When the migraine finally released its grip after two days, they figured he'd had some kind of 48-hour bug.

The second one came a month later. It began with the awful shimmering lines in his vision that, Dean learned later, were the warning sign of impending doom. "Something's wrong with me, Dad," Dean told him, terrified that he'd been struck blind (_Had he been cursed by that witch back in New Orleans?_) or was having a stroke.

When the symptoms subsided after half an hour, followed by a vicious headache on the opposite side of his head, his father sighed. He looked half relieved and half annoyed. "It's just a migraine, son, that's all. I get them too. You're not dying."

"You mean I'm gonna keep getting these?" Dean asked, appalled.

"Maybe. Everybody's different, I guess."

"Your genes suck, Dad."

"Hey, I'm a handsome, charming guy," Dad argued. "Smart as a whip, too. Shame you didn't inherit any of _those_ qualities."

"Shut up."

Sam was freaked out by Dean's periodic episodes of incapacitation, and Dean hates being so weak in front of him. But there's no way to bluff his way through a migraine, not for long. Sooner or later—preferably sooner—he always retreats into a miserable heap in his bed or in the back seat of the Impala, craving quiet and darkness.

Sam raced off to the library to research the problem, obviously unimpressed with Dad's pragmatic attitude (_"Leave him alone, he'll come out of it eventually."_). He photocopied articles from medical encyclopedias and stood over Dad until he read them.

Dad doesn't like it, but he eventually conceded that Dean's migraines aren't the mild annoyance that _his_ are. When Dean gets an attack, no amount of cajoling, rolling his eyes, or outright ordering is going to make his son get up and start functioning. They have to wait it out.

At Sam's urging, Dean's tried various home remedies, from drinking coffee when the aura appeared (which he didn't mind as long as he could keep his eyes closed) to eating buckwheat (which looked like puke, so he wouldn't go near it). Once, Sam tried to get him to listen to a guided meditation exercise he found in a library book, but his brother's soft voice telling him to breathe deeply and relax couldn't make a dent in his rising tension as he watched the shimmering lines dance behind his eyelids. Nothing really works any better than Excedrin, a dark room, and sleeping it off as much as possible.

**SpN*SpN*SpN*SpN**

He makes his way down I-565 little by little, a few minutes at a time. The glare from the light bouncing off the other cars stabs at his retinas. He has to pull over pretty frequently to settle his stomach (he loses the battle twice), close his eyes, and massage his aching temple.

He hums to himself, mumbling the lyrics to "One" as he inches down the highway. _Now the world is gone, I'm just one / Oh God, help me / Hold my breath as I wish for death / Oh please, God, help me._

It comforts him.

The sound of his Baby's engine, familiar and steady, calms him down, lulls him into a sense of peace. His head is killing him and he desperately wants to lie down, but if he can't do that, at least he's got this. He's always felt at home on the road, even if he's miserable and alone.

_Trapped in myself_, he sings. _Body my holding cell._

Just a few more miles.


End file.
